Educational Origami

Last week, I was lucky enough to go to the Cook islands and Aitutaki to work with the Ministry of education, principals and primary and secondary teachers. While I am convinced I am the only person who ever goes to the Cook islands to work, the experience was brilliant.

The ministry and the Minister of education have a vision of the Students and staff embracing ICT to improve learning. While limited by immediately available money they are making considerable in roads, deploying technology to each and every school no matter how remote or small. There is a vision that in the near future, every child will have a personal digital learning device. This is a laudable goal, and given the people I worked with an achievable one too.

While some of the teachers are still at the literacy stage and others are working at the augmentative or integrating level, the biggest barrier to success is not ministry policy, vision, teachers or equipment. It is the appalling internet connectivity, slow speed and hideous cost from the statutory monopoly that controls Cook islands internet – Cook Islands Telecom.

To be transformative you need connectivity, to do the things you can’t do with out technology (a definition of transformative level of use) you usually need connection. To be collaborative and to effectively communicate you need to have the connections. We know from NZ’s key competencies and Australia’s general capacities and even the common core standards from the USA that the ability to effectively communicate and collaborate is vital to 21st Century education.

Its frustrating… more to follow

Thursday, I was down in sunny Nelson for a one day leadership conference with the link learning cluster, working with Charles and Allanah and the principals and lead teachers of the 20+ primary schools that make up this ICTPD cluster.

The keynote was Key competencies in the 21st Century. In work that we (21st Century Fluency project) have done all round the world we have had our participants come up with the key competencies they see important in our dynamic world. The key competencies are:

• problem solving
• creativity
• analytical thinking
• communications
• collaboration
• ethics, action and accountability

The things I love about the ones we have developed and the New Zealand Curriculum is not only the obvious similarities and synergy, but also the focus not on learning and recalling knowledge but on processes and relationships.

The day in Nelson was great, a receptive and hugely enthusiastic group, eager to discuss, debate, contribute and share. Kia Kaha, our kids are in good hands.

Next week my students and I are presenting at a conference in Sydney via video conference. They are presenting to teachers about how they use technology to enhance their learning.

The presentation will invove me introducing and concluding the presentation, but the really important stuff is coming from the students. They are explaining how they use technology to enhance their learning. Its very interesting.

In class I use a variety of tools, we use:

• Google documents for shared collaborative documents and presentations
• Wikispaces wiki for within school and international collaborative projects
• Survey Monkey for surveys and information capture
• The usual variety of content focused tools to provide up to date materials

Blogging, messaging and resource sharing is done using our Learning management system.

The students were asked to come up with their own list of key tools that they use. The list did include wikis and google documents, but there were some very interesting additions. They picked these as there best tools:

• Google Documents
• Google presentations
• Bibme – the bibliography tools
• Facebook groups – to run the leadership groups and committees – Facebook is not accessable from school.
• Survey Monkey  – for their personal research for extended essays and Theory of knowledge
• Wikis
• Blogspot
• Content sites including Youtube,  sparknotes, TED, How Stuff works, BBC Bitesize, Wolfram Alpha

These were the students selections rather than mine. Its interesting to find out what they use. There were a series of other suggestions but this selection was the most commonly selected.

What I find interesting is the students selections while they match some of mine are also quite different. Theya re using facebook for learning, they are using blogspot in preference to our own blogging tools. They are using survey monkey for their information gathering and personal research.

I have to say I am looking forward to this presentation.

Its is quite strange that students presenting at a conference is a rare thing. Its also rather sad too. As adults, we expect and demand that decisions that influence and effect us are made from a consultative basis. When they aren’t we protest and complain, whether this is on a small scale  – talking to your boss or union representative or by marching picketing or protesting on a large scale. Yet how often are students given a voice to shape, decide and direct their future? How often are they abl to tell us what works and doesn’t work for them? Are they allowed to shape and direct their learning beyond option and subject selection.

Interesting huh?

At the innovate conference in Sydney in march I did a casual interview where I was asked a couple of questions and videoed as I replied.

It was a little daunting, but quite fun

http://www.schooltube.com/video/8340ef6e57b934375208/Inspire-Innovate-Vox-Pops-Andrew-Churches

The flatclassroom conference was a very interesting event for a number of reasons. The two parallel strands, one for teachers and one for students, with the interaction between them was brilliant. As was the fact that this was an action based conference, not a sit and listen conference. The students and teachers both had to produce a product (or project) by the end of the  conference. In the students case the product was a video and for the staff it was to design and develop a global collaborative project.

The students in developing their product had to “pitch” the video concept to the teachers twice. The first pitch was a ‘elevator pitch” an oral explanation of their concept. The second pitch was an “animatic pitch” where they storyboarded their video and presented this to the teacher. These were both challenging stages of the product development. At each stage the students received formative assessment and detailed feedback and were able to modify their design and concept if required or if they felt the feedback was justified.

The teachers also had to “pitch” their global collaborative project to the students and receive formative assessment and detailed feedback from the students about the concept they had developed.

Students pitching ideas to teachers and receiving feedback is pretty “run of the mill” stuff. The inverse isn’t. When we asked the teachers about the experience most of them said they were nervous presenting to the students. When we debriefed the students they said the process was empowering and that they would be more engaged in their learning if they were able to shape how they learnt it.

Discussing with my own students has indicated that they would love to be involved in the method and mode they are taught. they accept that the content is often dictated from “higher authorities”, but the way they are taught isn’t. Some students, at the conference,  didn’t want to do this and I suspect that is the exam focused “I want it handed to me on a plate” approach, but for many or actually most, they would love to be involved.

source: http://cus.oise.utoronto.ca/UserFiles/Image/PEV116.jpg

The advantages of this are obvious – student buy in to their learning, student engagement, student ownership and improved learning. The disadvantages are that is threatening and challenging to teachers, that it can make learning messy, that the teachers vision of what teaching should be and the students reality of how they want to learn could be different. It requires the teacher to be flexible and open to critique and to have developed a level of repore with their students.

One of the sessions I ran at the Flatclassroom conference was iPad, iPod, iPhone and iEducation. The session was short but very well attended and Apple China lent the conference 10 iPads and 40 iPod touches to use.

The premise of the session was what would I put on a class set of iPads or iPods for use in a classroom. Some comentators have said that the iPad is a consumption device and I would agree with that comment for the average user, but in education, the iPad is a tool of creativity, imagination and production. One of the teachers at the session asked me what were the limitations of the iPad and my answer was that, other than size related issues and lack of a camera, that web development and programming was hard. But for your average student is this a problem?

The iPad doesn’t have the power of a laptop or desk top, but do we use that power to its potential? For the average student, i suspect that the iPad would be a more than adequate tool.

So what would I place on my class set of iPads and what assessories would I want?

1. Productivity tools
   1. pages – Word processor
   2. keynote – presentation tool
   3. numbers – Data processing
2. mindmapping tool – iThoughtsHD (I am sure there are other but I know and like this one)
3. Image editor – Adobe Photoshop Express
4. File management tool – Good reader
5. Comic development tool – Comic Strip CS
6. Video editor – I would probably have either Splice (i haven’t yet got it to find video on my iPad though) or ReelDirector
7. Language application – iTranslate
8. GIS tool – Google Earth
9. Note taking tool – Audio Note (records sound while allowing you to type notes and draw illustrations)
10. Projector – enables other applications to use the VGA adapter
11. Communication tool – Skype

This is the basics, these are the tools that I would make regular use of in the classroom. There are many others worth mentioning too like Math Board, Virtual Frog dissection, storybook, Play2learn all of which are of value and worth using.

For the iPod the list is not as broad. You lack the productivity tools  but the others remain the same.

1. mindmapping tool – iThoughtsHD
2. Image editor – Adobe Photoshop Express
3. Comic development tool – Comic Strip CS
4. Video editor – Splice
5. Language application – iTranslate
6. GIS tool – Google Earth
7. Note taking tool – Audio Note.

In my class set of assessories I would have

1. Camera adapter (SD Card and USB adaptor allowing direct connection to the iPad)
2. VGA adapter – connect you iPad to a projector
3. One microphone/earphone set per iPad

Have I missed anything? What would you add?

On of the many concepts I got out of  the Workshop on building future focus schools was sustainability.

The concept is obviously not new, but its critical. Whether it is sustainability in terms of professional learning and development of pedagogy or sustainability in the use and reuse of learning spaces, its critical.

Professional learning, isn’t something that should be funded for a short period of time, and by short I mean 2-3 years. The model we have seen of government cluster funding a single or cluster of schools for professional learning is laudible but short sighted. For the 2-3 years of the contract, professional learning continues apace. But the cut off of funding post contract often (but not always) see a massive drop off in professional learning. It does not take into account staff churn as new staff come in and out of schools. Nor does it account for the different learning needs and speeds of staff. In short this is not sustainable – you end up with Flashes of inspiration and stretches of dullness.

The physical spaces need to be sustainable as well. I know of schools that under one leadership regime undertook redevlopment of classrooms into learning commons, removing walls and opening the structure and under the next replaced the walls and closed the structures. The changes need to be sustaibnable and this comes from clear purpose and outcomes, vision and integrity of purpose. This too relates to professional learning and the need for the vision to be articulated not only in words but in actions by training and supporting staff.

So then too our purpose and outcomes must be sustainable. These must be based on research and understanding. Supported by evaluation and analysis rather than grasping at the latest trend to appear on the educational horizon. This must be articulated to the three sides of the triangle the students, staff and parents. Here is what we are doing, when we are doing it, where we are doing it and who is doing it (describing the situation) Here is why and how we are doing it (analysing) and here is why its important, the outcomes, relationships and impacts (evaluation).

Sustainability is critical.

…must you hear the message before you act?

My good friend and colleague Lee Crockett did a stunning keynote at my school for about 300 international and national delegates at a recent conference. The keynote, Understanding the Digital Generation, compared the charactoristics of our increasingly digital students and those who have not adopted to the same extent technology. (We know from lots of current research on neuroplasticity  that exposure to technology and other stimuli will physically change the persons brain)

His presentation discussed the changes we need to consider in our teaching and learning as a result of not only neuroplasticity, but also infowhelm, ubiquitous access to technology etc.

As I said the presentation was very very well received and the only comment that I heard that could have been taken as negative was a person saying we have heard this before.

Well this begs the question… How many times do you have too hear the message before you act?

I have heard the same comment before, recently in Japan, where people said well we have heard this before. Yes you might have but you must do more than just hear the message, you must act. Its not enough to say I know about 21st Century Teaching and learning and I understand the concequences of this. We MUST act.

Lee’s closing comment was “professional Development with out follow up is malpractice”. It is not enough to say YES I agree and then not act.

Hence my question – How many times must you hear the message before you act?

Wow, the last two weeks have been frantic and the first thing that suffers is blogging.

Here is my collection and finds for the week (oophs 2 weeks)

1. NetNewsWire – http://netnewswireapp.com/mac/ The announcement by blog lines that they are closing down, has forced me to move from using bloglines as an aggregator. So a quick surf and comparision of reviews led me to NetNewsWire – I have to say I am impressed and the fact that it is also available for the ipad and iphone is a bonus.

2. Christchurch Quake Map – http://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz/ – This is not only a topical site, its also a great example of a mash up combining data from GeoNet http://www.geonet.org.nz/index.html and google maps. Well worth visiting and discussing – a useful resource for ITGS, social studies and geography.

3. Visual Studio 2010 quick resource – http://vs2010quickref.codeplex.com/ if you are a programmer using the MS environments this will appeal to you.

4. Nuclear Detonations – http://images.vizworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/NuclearDetonation.jpg – this is an infographic that shows nuclear explosions since the first tests in the desert at Alamogordo in 1945. Its interesting, but quite sad reading.

5. iPad Curriculum – http://www.ipadcurriculum.com/ This is a useful blog which focuses on the use of the iPad in education. Worth subscribing to as we see this tool start to flourish into its educational potential.

6. Rock Our World – http://www.rockourworld.org/ this is a global project, with a musical theme. Great idea – here is what they say “Using Apple’s GarageBand, each country creates a 30 second drum beat.  Every Friday, that drum rotates to another country, where the bass guitar is added.  It keeps getting passed along, from country to country.  At each stop, one more instrument is added.  When it comes back to the original country, it has touched students from all over the world!”

and if we are talking of Global Projects we can’t go past Julie Lindsay’s and Vicki Davis’s Flatclassroom Project - I have been involved in this for 2-3 years with my students doing the NetGenEd Project – its a stunning start for the ITGS curriculum for us. They have the flat classroom conference, a conference for teachers and students, coming up soon. This is a great opportunity to participate and be involved in a stunning global project and amazing collaboration event in Beijing http://www.flatclassroomconference.com/index.html I am privileged to be one of the presenters  – YEEHAA

key Links -

http://www.flatclassroomproject.net/about.html

http://www.flatclassroomconference.com/index.html

Tomorrow is going to be fun – I have a Elluminate meeting to present and discuss Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy with Queensland teachers..

I have done Elluminate meetings before and its a very powerful tool for distance education. I like the fact that you can record the presenation and make it available for people who could not attend.

This is one of those tools I would like to see in schools. Consider the situation in Christchurch, where the students have been advised that the schools will not be reopening until Monday, 1 week after the earthquake. This is a decision by the Ministry of Education to ensure the schools are safe  – you can’t argue with the logic. But for many of the senior students they are focused on the final stages of preparation for external examinations. Whether you like examination or not, they are a reality and we have to prepare our students for them.

Most students would have been prepared for the holidays and would have materials available for study and revision. But in the reality of the disaster they have time but not access to resources.

It would be brilliant to have a facility like this available so the students could connect to their teachers and continue in their preparation for examinations.

Tools like these change the face of education. Students using these tools are not limited to the knowledge and experience of a single tutor in a classroom, but suddenly have a world of teachers, facilitators and experts available to them. This does not discount the importance of the relationships that the teacher and student develop, nor the importance of seeing and talking to the teacher face to face, but it is a brilliant tool in the teaching and learning arsenal.